Caltech Professor Pamela Bjorkman Elected To National Academy of Sciences

Pamela Bjorkman, professor of and executive officer for biology at the California Institute of Technology, is one of 72 American scientists elected this year to membership in the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The announcement was made earlier this month in Washington at the 138th annual meeting of the academy.

Bjorkman, who has been on the Caltech faculty since 1989, focuses much of her research on molecules involved in cell-surface recognition, particularly molecules of the immune system. Investigators in her lab use a combined approach, including X-ray crystallography to determine three-dimensional structures, molecular biological techniques to produce proteins and to modify them, and biochemistry to study the properties of the proteins.

Much of the Bjorkman lab's efforts has involved proteins known as class I MHC, as well as very similar proteins—or homologues—that have a number of functions aside from an immunological role. In a 1999 study, for example, Bjorkman and her colleagues determined the three-dimensional structure of a protein that causes cachexia, a wasting syndrome in cancer and AIDS patients. The discovery provided the scientific basis for possible future strategies for controlling cachexia and/or treatment of obesity.

A native of Portland, Oregon, Bjorkman earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Oregon in 1978 and her doctorate from Harvard University in 1984. Afterward, she held postdoctoral positions at Harvard and the Stanford University School of Medicine.

She is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and has been a Pew Scholar in the biomedical sciences, an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, and an American Society of Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Young Investigator.

She has been the recipient of the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Fundamental Immunology, the Gairdner Foundation International Award for achievements in medical science, and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Award.

Bjorkman's election to the National Academy of Sciences brings to 67 the number of living Caltech professors and professors emeritus who have earned the prestigious honor. The National Academy, established in 1863 by President Lincoln, acts as an advisory body for the federal government on scientific matters.

Contact: Robert Tindol (626) 395-3631